Street Furniture claim following accident

Aretnap

lisyloo said:

Car_54 said:

lisyloo said:

Agree you may not be liable for this.
I would suggest to everyone keeping records of all your insurance policies for 6 years.
If you switch a lot you might not even remember who it was with.

FYI the statue of limitations for property and land is I believe 12 years, so for home insurance maybe longer.

Why "may not" be liable? If he was insured, that's what it's for.

And it's six years to bring a claim for property damage, three years for personal injury.

Liability and insurance are different things,
I said “may” as I don’t have access to the medical records so can’t be certain.

statue of limitation are here ranging from 1-12 years
https://www.claims.co.uk/knowledge-base/claim-preparations/civil-claim-limitation-periods

This is a claim for damage to property caused by (alleged) negligence so the limitation period is 6 years.

Limitation period can be longer for a few other things like recovery of land (eg from squatters), but that's of no relevance to the OP.

lisyloo

Aretnap said:

lisyloo said:

Car_54 said:

lisyloo said:

Agree you may not be liable for this.
I would suggest to everyone keeping records of all your insurance policies for 6 years.
If you switch a lot you might not even remember who it was with.

FYI the statue of limitations for property and land is I believe 12 years, so for home insurance maybe longer.

Why "may not" be liable? If he was insured, that's what it's for.

And it's six years to bring a claim for property damage, three years for personal injury.

Liability and insurance are different things,
I said “may” as I don’t have access to the medical records so can’t be certain.

statue of limitation are here ranging from 1-12 years
https://www.claims.co.uk/knowledge-base/claim-preparations/civil-claim-limitation-periods

This is a claim for damage to property caused by (alleged) negligence so the limitation period is 6 years.

Limitation period can be longer for a few other things like recovery of land (eg from squatters), but that's of no relevance to the OP.

I was speaking generally and suggesting people keep their insurance policies for at least 6 years.
this bill has come in 18 months later. Many people switch insurance so wouldn’t necessarily remember their home, car, bike insurers in arrears.
the context of my comment was general and not specific to damage to road furniture.

do you not agree it’s sensible to keep policies if there may be a claim come in later on or you might want to make one yourself?

I recently wanted to use my legal insurance and I had to go back a couple of years.
it was flight delay compensation and it’s taken me 18 months to get a ruling from the CAA.
the flight tickets were bought in a previous policy year, so I had to go back to a third policy.
if I didn’t have the details I would not have been able to use the insurance.

if people think it’s a good idea to chuck away their policies then of course they are free to ignore my suggestion, but I can’t see why it’s a bad idea to file a few emails and I think this case demostrates that.
recovery of land is a stretch - I go for 6 years.

DullGreyGuy

Because of the nearly unique nature of Motor it's different as ultimately you can always ask the MIB who'll have a record of who your insurer was at any time in the last 6 years. 

If you wanted to be really prudent you'd need to keep the records for longer though, for an accident involving adults the law of limitation is 3 years injury, 6 years property however if a minor is injured then they have until their 21st birthday to initiate a court claim. Many times the parents will step in as the Litigation Friend and so things are resolved in normal timescales but in other cases parents may decide to leave it for the kid to decide for themselves when they are older... I was potentially able to be involved in a med mal case which my parents could have done for me as a kid but left it to me to decide at a later date (I decided not to)

lisyloo

I keep mine for 6 years which simply means filing the emails in an "archive" folder.
As I mentioned I did make use of that recently to find my legal insurance and that was for me to make a claim not a claim against me.
If I was involved in an accident especially with a minor then it might make sense to keep them for longer.

ontheroad1970

Is it not the case that due to the fact it was a medical event that there was no negligence on your part, so no claim?

lisyloo

ontheroad1970 said:

Is it not the case that due to the fact it was a medical event that there was no negligence on your part, so no claim?

That's my understanding as long as there was no pre-existing medical condition.
but I would leave that for the insurer to repudiate - they will know how to deal with it.

DullGreyGuy

ontheroad1970 said:

Is it not the case that due to the fact it was a medical event that there was no negligence on your part, so no claim?

The question is if there is a potential claim from the third party or not... there has already been a claim by the OP for their own vehicle damage and so from their point of view if the street furniture claim is paid or not makes no difference to them.

Medical events you need to investigate the OPs medical background, have a detailed account of the day in question etc. If they have an existing condition, they've not been good at taking their meds, cannot remember if they did or didnt that day etc then normally the insurer will just pay out to the TP. If the OP has never had a day sick in their life, take no meds, was feeling fit and normal on the day etc then there is certainly a question mark on liability but as already said, it makes no difference to the OP, there will be costs involved with medical opinion etc and so a commercial decision will be taken on if its worth defending the claim or just paying it as the lower cost option. 

lisyloo

Doesn't size of claim make a difference? or is this not at significant level?
I've seen it asked for on quotes.

Isn't it up to the claimant to prove any negligence on the part of the OP?
The onus is not on the OP or insurers to disprove - they can just reject the claim.
I don't think claimant has any rights to medical records in a civil case do they?

Either way the OP can't control what their insurer decides to do.

DullGreyGuy

lisyloo said:

Doesn't size of claim make a difference? or is this not at significant level?
I've seen it asked for on quotes.

Not for most insurers and when it does it tends to be very wide bands. One client that did just had three bands, under £100,000, under £1,000,000 or over £1,000,000. Life gets different when you are looking at corporate policies where its not if there is a claim in a given year but if the claims total is more or less than the normal £20,000,000 

The value of a claim tells you little, going into the back of a Rolls at 2mph will probably cost the same as hitting the average family car at 40mph 

lisyloo said:

Isn't it up to the claimant to prove any negligence on the part of the OP?
The onus is not on the OP or insurers to disprove - they can just reject the claim.
I don't think claimant has any rights to medical records in a civil case do they?

The OP hit a static object thats probably been there for a decade or more... whilst its not strict liability it's as close to it as it can be... the "the lamppost came out of no where" doesn't tend to hold water. 

I could probably guess the 4 allegations of negligence they'll have made when it comes to hitting a static object. There is no dispute the OP hit the lamppost (or whatever it was) so they need to put forward a reason why it's not their fault they hit it which is where medical things come into account. 

The claimant cannot force a defendant to share medical records but if the basis of the defence is on medical then you will be expected to present evidence to prove it. If it goes before a judge, the facts of the mater are agreed other than the OP says they had an out of the blue seizure but they aren't willing to give evidence and the judge just has to trust them you dont need a law degree to guess if the judge will think its more likely a perfectly healthy person had a seizure or they simply weren't driving with due care and attention for the road conditions and hit a lamppost. 

lisyloo

That's not my understanding of the law. 
Do you have a link to the law? in case there's been a recent change that's not reflected in my links?
That would be educational for all.

I understand you have to put in a defence in a court, but an insurer facing a claim does not have to put in a defence, they just have to deny the claim and wait to see if the council wants to pursue £1200, there will be a bar for that (I have no idea where that bar is set). You probably would produce your medical records in a court defence but that's not the same as the council having easy access to them.



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